Fedodika the Koala

[Fedodika]

now beginning the journey of trying to draw a charcoal portrait with neat shading and accurate proportions. The first one i used very soft charcoal and a pretty loose approach. the problems with it are the values are too light and the contrast is quite low. This causes it to look faded, but i think it has the best proportions of the 3. The second uses a rather (my mistake) dulle conte, which gives it quite choppy shading. The eyes are lopsided, and the jaw was skewed. The forehead also is hideous with the way i indicated the bone from the skull going near the temporalis. 

Of course, i dont really notice these things until i take a photo, i think i shoud do that more in the process to see it in different light. The third, i was noticing how choppy my shading was and tried to do a cleaner form of shading. So i sharpened my pencil a great deal, and got a rather clean hatching pattern. However i wasnt getting much of a kick so ended up using a blending stick as an experiment to see if i could get a smooth edge and look. It kinda looked cool for a bit and these look much better in real life, but yea. Its forehead is skewed, and i cant lean into that small shadow on the forehead right. it always looks very just punched in and not natural. The lips are too small and the jawline is too heavy. i could go on and on, i'll try again tomorrow 

I'm gonna keep studying this image, and experimenting and trying to push my accuracy. I spent about 2 hours on each and despite taking breaks and coming back to look, was convinced my proportions were right. I think the camera will serve as a help going forward and all i can do is keep trying, despite how frustrating this is. i feel like my eye has leapt forward and i can barely keep up, i guess its  a good thing